Source: FayesVision/WENN.com / WENN
While it’s good to be model Ashley Graham these days, it’s not easy being her husband, Justin Ervin.
The 31-year-old, who is on the cover of the July issue of Allure, revealed that during a recent trip last year that they took to Italy, her husband was spat on. The situation was yet another reminder of how different his experiences are as a Black man, in comparison to hers, wherever he goes.
“I see what my husband has to go through every day. We had gone to Italy, and a man spat on him,” she said in the publication. “It’s heartbreaking. It can make you really angry. But it’s like, how are you going to change that anger into a teachable moment?”
She claims she used the experience to become as knowledgeable as possible on what her husband, and Black people in general, have to deal with so that she can educate others. She also hopes to educate herself as best as possible in preparation for the Black children she hopes to raise.
“Read books; have conversations. Educate yourself,” she said. “The more you have conversations with people around you that are different than you, [the more] you’re going to learn and you’re going to grow. No one who isn’t black is going to understand a black person’s life, but they don’t have to be ignorant toward [what it’s like]. I want to know as much as I can as a white woman who is going to be raising black children. We’re going to have to have that conversation of ‘Mommy’s white, Daddy’s black,’ and I want to be prepared.”
This isn’t the first time Justin has faced racism due to his relationship with Graham. Back in 2017, in her memoir, A New Model, she said it was her own grandmother who showed an ugly side of herself when Ashley brought him home to Nebraska to meet family.
“I naively hoped everyone would be color-blind—which is not what happened, “she wrote. “When my grandparents met Justin, my grandmother was cordial but cold. She greeted him and immediately walked away. When it came time for them to leave, my grandparents didn’t even acknowledge him. Instead my grandmother looked me in the eye, with Justin standing behind me, and said, ‘Tell that guy I said goodbye.’ I had never seen my loving, hardworking, and wonderful grandma be so hurtful and so racist. I was in shock. After they left I took Justin on a ride to get out of the house. I’ll never forget what he said as we drove around town: ‘Racism is never surprising but always disappointing.'”
“Justin made me understand that someone like my grandma only saw Black men depicted on television in situations involving guns, rape, and violence—situations that perpetuate racist stereotypes against black people in general and black men in particular,” she added. “She had probably never looked a Black man in the face, let alone had a conversation with him, and now one was in her daughter’s home, dating her granddaughter. As if his understanding wasn’t generous enough, Justin called my grandmother on her sixtieth wedding anniversary. He’s not a texter or an emailer; he’s a pick-up-the-phone-and-call-you person, and anniversaries are a big deal to him. Afterward Grandma called my mom and said, ‘You’ll never guess who called me.’ And from then on out, she loved him. Loved him.”
Ashley and Justin have been married since 2010.
